GameCity5

Nottingham, 14/10/10 – GameCity, the World’s best-loved videogames festival, today announced the details of this year’s Director’s Commentary, delivered by Braid creator, Jonathan Blow. The commentary will take place on Wednesday 27th in the Council House Ballroom from 4-6pm and forms part of the GameCity5 festival. GameCity5 runs from October 26-30 ^th throughout Nottingham.

Since its release, time manipulation extravaganza Braid has received worldwide critical acclaim and now its creator, Jonathan Blow, will join GameCity5 to shed new light on the runaway success with a Director’s Commentary of the entire game.

From start to finish, Blow will tackle his game and guides fans through the design, development process and reception, answering questions and shedding some light on rewinding time, saving a princess and nuclear bomb analogies.

GameCity Director Iain Simons said, “Braid is a uniquely innovative title which we featured an early build of as part of Indiecade years ago, it’s an honour and a privilege to welcome the man himself here to reflect on the making if this brilliant work.”

Blow will also give fans a sneak peek of his latest project, The Witness, an exploration puzzle-game set on an uninhabited island. Details still remain a tightly guarded secret, though attendees will be the first to experience this latest build.

The Jonathan Blow Director Commentary is one part of GameCity5, the yearly festival that explores and celebrates videogames culture. For the full details on the festival line-up, go to www.gamecity.org. To book your attendance at this event, go to my.gamecity.org

NOTES TO EDITOR

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*GameCityNights is a series of after-dark monthly events that brings together developers, students and players in a celebration and exploration of videogame culture - with prizes. Every month a brilliant headline speaker will be making their way to Nottingham to share their thoughts, passions and give a unique insight into their work.

GameCity is what a videogame festival should be. 

The Centre for Contemporary Play is a research centre based at Nottingham Trent University which pioneers innovative thinking through new partnerships. Since 2008 it has worked with a variety of leading organisations from the commercial and public sector to deliver major research and inclusion projects. These include the ITAG conference, the GameCity videogame festival and the National Videogame Archive - a unique collaboration with the National Media Museum.

Driven by leading thinking at NTU, the Centre for Contemporary Play continues to create radical and innovative projects in the academic and public engagement space.

Gamecity’s aim is to bring together developers and the public to explore and celebrate videogames and videogames culture, with a particular focus on students. We attract the best speakers in the world, offer up-and-coming artists and developers a platform for their games and create totally unique events.

Some of GameCity’s greatest hits include a world-record breaking zombie gathering, Keita Takahashi designing a children’s playground and Masaya Matsuura, Lorne Lanning, Alexey Pajitnov and Media Molecule having headlined.

We’ve worked alongside some of the most prominent names in gaming, including; Warner Bros, TTGames, Crytek, Activision, Namco Bandai, SCEE, Xbox, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Nintendo, Freestyle Games, David Braben, Media Molecule, Splash Damage, Harmonix, Rare, Denki, Monumental Games, Midway, Zoe Mode, ThatGameCompany, Nana-on-Sha and lots more.

Going way beyond just playing games, GameCity offers other new ways for people to interact with videogame culture. Art exhibitions, director commentaries, playground building, live recreations of videogames, gigs, gong-shows, three World Records, arcade trails, club nights – nothing is off limits for this most radical of videogame festivals.

Don’t just take our word for it, see what others have said after working with us,

GameCity looks poised to become our industry’s ?rst Sundance. A truly unique approach for hosting a game festival that seems long overdue.

Lorne Lanning, Oddworld Inhabitants

GameCity is unique. Any games festival that can reunite industry legends, lead to a Japanese game developer designing a playground, and evoke religious sentiments in a shopping centre is doing something very right for sure.

Edge Magazine

The year’s most inventively programmed new arts festival

The Times